


Tremolando

by psalloacappella



Series: Equilibrium [12]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angry Haruno Sakura, Angst, Drama, F/M, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Jealousy, Post-War, Self Hating Uchiha, Uchiha Sasuke Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 21:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20645699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psalloacappella/pseuds/psalloacappella
Summary: Placing her hands on the sides of his face, she whispers, “I’m scared. I’m scared of us, of this.” A beat. Her touch burns in the most wonderful way, but it doesn’t couch the awful way she finishes, speaking it into his lips like a secret. “Sometimes I’m scared of you.”





	Tremolando

There’s something so frenetic, so sensual, about the rouge flooding into the high points of her cheeks, and he knows if she detects even a minuscule trace scent of that sentiment, she will shatter every single bone he owns.

His temper is spiraling, as it’s wont to do lately, and he knows the stance he’s adopting is aggressive, every hair on end like that intoxicating moment before the peak of the mission comes, a fraction of a second before the kill. A shinobi masks scent, sound, and heartbeat to stay alive for that moment, for the heady punch-drunk thrill. Could it be bottled, captured, obsessively acquired, men more capable than him, though they weren’t many, would burn it all down, ruin villages for it.

It’s here. It’s now. Something implacable writhes in her eyes, alight and sharp, almost dancing. He could just ask, but this is a dangerous and delicate balance of wits. Doesn’t remember how it began – some flippant comment escaping his lips in direct response to being flustered. Trying to focus on her face and not her _legs for miles_ beneath the oversized shirt ensconcing her thin frame. Shoulder slips off; her collarbone mocks him. 

“You’re selfish,” she spits, and for a second he forgets that she’s so angry with him. That actually he might not come out of this looking reasonable. “You can’t just waltz back into town and get it all back.”

He snorts and mutters some rude retort, and the only thing audible sounds like, _Kiba._

“That’s it, isn’t it? You left me and I was supposed to just hold a candle forever, like some pious wife? You’re delusional.” It hits hard like a slap. 

Now he’s breathing, counting, this stupid tactic he was taught to reel in his reactions so he can think straight when he’s in the throes of nightmares or flashbacks, or to assess what sharp, thoughtless language he’s about to let fly and try to reframe it, use better judgment. The worst part is, she’s right. So much has changed but just this one thing, this unvarnished, bright thing: the quiet day before the sun rises, the crisp river water, placid and unbroken, her gentle voice that only was ever used with him, not his idiot of a teammate or any other person on this earth – he feels this belongs to him only and anger bubbles at the thought of her using it with anyone else. Shining into anyone else’s broken heart, lighting up any other face, comforting anyone else would be unacceptable. 

He knows what he should say.

Instead: “I never asked for your help, your lo—or anything else, Sakura.” He trips over the word, throat tightening, strangling, choking it off.

“You’re right.” She crosses her arms to quell the shaking; it’s an earthquake, her whole body vibrating uncontrollably, the uncomfortable tightrope between sobbing and fury, and he knows it’s him, always the one making her cry and maybe she found something in someone else that’s as light and bright as her. “You’re right, so why do you keep coming back? I keep chasing you, you come back and circle around, crawling back in—”

Again, the arrogant sound, trying and failing to blend a blithe sigh into the irritated growl in his throat. “Crawling?” He takes a step closer, wanting to shake her, kiss her, anything to stop the vitriol, the steely tongue, the intensity of her eyes because they’re tearing him to pieces. Green glass shards flaring in her eyes, each one sliding beneath his skin because _you’re right, I’m back and I want you to myself, you’re even better like this,_ something he couldn’t bend so easily and less eager to please. So hard to get, like all of the other stupid ideas and desires he’s chased after. The constant threat of disappointment, dancing just out of his reach.

“Right, excuse me, you’re obviously too proud and good for that,” she says sharply, yanking her sleeve back up over her shoulder. “Just like you’re too proud and good for me.”

“Stop!” The admonishment cuts through the air like a knife; she falters and wobbles backward a little as if faintly relieved he’ll still speak, express himself. There’s stray locks coming out of place, so unlike him, and the idea that she’s made him reveal something, anything about his feelings is a high like nothing else. Eyes like pitch, deep and dark in the dim living room lights, glittering and hanging on to hers, a lighthouse in the sea. He hisses, “You don’t get it, Sakura.”

“You always say that,” she says quietly. “You always have. Tell me what I don’t get, Sauske-kun.”

He can stop it. Cross the room, lift her tiny body into his arms and carry her upstairs like a feather pillow, and she’ll protest, but just a bit. End this, but he knows it will happen again until everything they need to say is expelled. 

_Crea-a-ak._

A yelp, boots scraping on the threshold. Naruto sheepishly pokes his head through the front door, thankfully having the grace to look embarrassed. “Heh, hey, so, it looks like you guys are busy.”

He pointedly avoids looking at Sakura’s long legs, except – that quick flicker of the eyes. He might die for that glance. Instead he looks at Sasuke, looking slightly unhinged with his flyaway hair, collar of his shirt stretched and twisted, and at their stances, fists clenched and muscles tense.

“What, are you bringing your fights in here now, idiot?”

Neither of his teammates move, and their eyes never waver from one another’s. They’re locked, stuck, grappling. This is the danger of the tightrope, and one errant breath or utterance or shift of the muscle could plunge them into an unrecoverable state. Trying to read one another, feeling helpless and furious and wanting to break it and return to a normal plane of existence. 

“Anyway,” Naruto stage whispers, edging through the open door, body dragging against the wall. If he makes himself as flat and thin as possible, maybe he can sink into it and disappear. “I’ll just go up to my room.”

Sakura doesn’t break gaze, but mutters in a low voice, “You. Don’t. Live. Here.” 

“Neither does he, but he’s staying in your ro—”

Ino’s long arm reaches through the door, and there’s no sound as she smartly claps her hand over his idiotic protestations. She hisses something like _you’re truly stupid_ and begins to push him forward while her other hand drags in the next person, a dilapidated, drunk conga line, and Sai’s pale face looms in the dimness. 

“Ah, mom and dad are fighting again,” he says flatly, ending on a hiccup. Red dusting in his face. Ino shakes him back and forth roughly, head bouncing around on his neck, but she yanks him bodily over the threshold, and he manages to kick the door shut behind him.

They try to tiptoe around the energy in the room; it fails miserably as Naruto and Sai’s loud, sloppy steps clomp up the stairs, mutterings abound. Neither Sasuke nor Sakura breathe or speak until the abrupt sound of a door slamming floats down from the upper floor. 

And for a second it’s ebbing, this tension, and maybe they can fall together like they were before into something loving, none of this nonsense. Because he’s been smoldering, a gutted and grey fire, and if he’s not fighting for his life and flooded with the adrenaline of a mission or assassination or danger he feels like nothing, and the only other thing that works is _her._ She’s sunrise; she’s clean and bright. Strong, blinding. Even when she’s frustrated, pushes him for more and wants him to open up, reveal all his pieces inside, uses him in ways he’s never considered, it gives him purpose and the universe hums. And though she would be heartbroken to hear him think of himself this way—he feels like the most cherished, well-worn tool in the world.

“I’m not good at this,” he finally says. Offers it up like a mild concession, no pretense. “I hate talking. I expected to fight with Naruto, because he’s an idiot, and that’s how we get along. I’ve never wanted to fight with you. You don’t deserve it.”

She blinks, nonplussed. Even her shoulders start to droop, and there goes that _goddamn sleeve_ again, sliding off without a care. Even the bends of her bones are enticing and this is what he hates, what winds itself in with the desire, the anger that something so irrelevant makes him so weak, makes men and women and Shinobi so weak, that love is the single point of failure of them all. Standing there in his shirt, looking too small in it. Drowning in it. Drowning in him. 

Except, as he hasn’t quite accepted yet, love ends up being the single thread in everything.

“What you need to understand,” she says, taking a step closer, “Is that while I can’t begin to understand the pain you’ve felt . . . you also don’t understand what it’s like to feel mine.” 

Her fingers grasp the fabric of the shirt he’s wearing, wind themselves tight, and hold him there. Everything in the atmosphere spirals dangerously and they’re in the mire again, so tense that he wishes she would do anything to break it, hurt him or hold him or whatever would make her feel better, take the pain out of her eyes and the tears brimming on her eyelashes.

“I’ve spent years,” her fingers tighten, “Chasing both of you. Watching your backs, trying and failing to take my place next to you. I’ve seen so much. Too much. I’ve seen you both at your lowest, I’ve seen you on the verge of death. I’ve seen you—” She rocks him a little now, with just a fraction of the strength he knows she has. Again, it crosses his mind how tiny she seems and how it doesn’t make much sense. Though it’s her whole body, vibrating again and he never can tell if it’s fury or sadness or she’s trying not to cry, trying not to look weak in front of him again, and he’s finally starting to understand: “—beaten, broken, behind bars.” 

A memory flares in his mind, of him lying in a disheveled heap in a dank, dark cell after speaking, at length, more than he’s ever been required to in his life. Exhaustion. Food is irrelevant, has no taste or nuance, hasn’t partaken in days because nothing feels like anything anyway. In a twisted way, his situation makes him lighter, this whole confessional and the feeling of finally being captured and suffocated. It’s relieving. He sees her hand a message to the shinobi on duty, eyes passing over him without feeling, turning on her heel and stalking out. It’s cutting, an acute sense of loss. He’s done that to her for years, over and over. After crawling out of the mire, the jungle, whatever the darkness can be likened to, emotions take on a clearer quality and she’s right, he doesn’t understand, but he has an idea. 

“I expected a normal life.” Her words sound in the silent living room, a fractal of an octave above a whisper. “I didn’t expect to be this strong or confident, to be the subject of whispers and stories, to take my place alongside two men like you.” 

The toll her team takes on her reveals itself in small moments; the dark, tired circles she’ll try to cover up, the whispers she ignores from others, the small lopsided smile and sigh when she opens her door and her sensei and Naruto are in her living room. The energy she expends when healing them because even though they’re not like other men, able to take more pain, heal faster, she makes sure they receive everything they could possibly need. They’re empty and starving in so many ways and she gives love until there’s none, and then manages to offer up more. 

Jolting like he’s been hit, he remembers his mother, an image and emotion so painful his hand goes to his chest and his inhale is sharp. Sakura’s eyebrows furrow in concern and everything deepens, she’s seeping into him and around him all over again; he’s ashamed of himself but also wanting her so deeply in this moment, all at once. She’s always fixing them – her love is the glue that binds. 

A soft scream of surprise as he yanks her closer to him: Damn the shirt and her stupid bones and her strength and her unrelenting grace to idiots like them. A glint in the dim light; he pushes her hair behind her ear to see them, the tiny ruby jewel nestled in her cartilage, and it feels delightfully invasive. Deep sounds rumble in his throat, constant in its low idle, feral and coming from a place much deeper than his arrogant prose. The things he says don’t matter as much as this. He’s on fire, and it’s worth it. She mumbles something he doesn’t quite catch.

Placing her hands on the sides of his face, she whispers, “I’m scared. I’m scared of us, of this.” A beat. Her touch burns in the most wonderful way, but it doesn’t couch the awful way she finishes, speaking it into his lips like a secret. “Sometimes I’m scared of you.”

He crashes his lips on hers, consuming the rest of the words; they’re his to swallow and suffer from. He could say sweet nothings, tell her not to be scared, that he’ll stay with her forever and protect her. He imagines his mother scolding him, how stupid and stunted he is, how terrible at speaking and comforting and expressing himself he is, this is no way to treat a lady. If he keeps kissing her, though, maybe she’ll understand, how he’s apologizing now and every time he touches her for every future time to come. Thumb dragging across her earring, callous catching on the jewel, fingers in her hair; she leans into him, flush, falling in like landing in a flower field, every part of her tight against him. 

“I kicked you out,” she breathes, ripping her lips away from his, everything tumescent, red and flushed. “I wanted you to feel like you made me feel. Just once. Rejected. Shouldn’t have done it.”

His words are clearest in these moments, his guard down and knowing only that she exists, brighter than anything. “Deserved it—”

“Can’t believe—” Lips lock again. Thin arms snaking around his neck, up his shirt; her fingers leave hot marks in trails. “—you believed me.” Her laughs like the plunks of piano keys, black and white, dark and bright, alternating between embarrassment and joy. Confusing in all the right ways, blunting his ego just the tiniest bit as he pulls away to touch her lip, and the heat between them devours all of the air. And this is why she’s dangerous, not because she can shatter every bone, but because if she kicks him out again he’ll return, and if it makes her feel even a little vindicated he’ll let her do it over and over. Whatever she wants. 

“I just want,” she breathes, words punctuating the hot space between them, “to be enough.”

It’s this that ruins him, crushing like a heart attack, infuriating enough that he pulls her back, his entire hand still tangled in her hair. “You don’t get it, do you?” She’s startled, eyes wide, her grip on him faltering. 

In a rough movement he grabs her, lifting her hips with ease _she’s so fucking light_ and settling her on him; lithe legs crossing around him automatically, a new flush flares in her cheeks, stealing beneath the hem of the shirt and her collar bones are sharp in the light, sweat beading up through her skin. The moan coming from her is satisfying, thrums, hums, the tone and pitch of the universe, and all of it aligns so easily that it feels like something obvious that he’s always known.

“You’ve always been.” Like he’s scolding her, and his fingers hold her hair fast with her neck exposed, the dip in her breastbone deep with shadow, a ladle from which he can drink. Thirsty for things that ruin him, pull him inside out, the cadence of his messy life. 

“What?” A frayed quality to her tone, like she can’t breathe. 

Spoken against her sternum as his head travels up, touching his lips to each bone so every syllable vibrates in her marrow. “You—could lead me off a cliff.”

In the stunned silence, a hitch in her breath; it starts like chimes and hits him here and there, like raindrops, pelting him, throaty cackling, interrupted only by his slow hiss against her breastbone as her pelvis rolls forward, languishingly, agonizingly, and her legs untangle. She separates herself from him and stands, staring, the gradient of color in her irises sharp like needles, shirt buttons open and hair askew. Lips swollen, almost bruised. She brings her fingers to them and feels them with a sense of wonder, knees grinding against one another, shaking slightly as if poised to spring. Still with those bewildered imitations of laughter. The corner of her lips kicks up in a smirk. She brushes a stray bead of sweat away, grazing her stomach with the backs of her fingers, nipples hard and peaked through his oversized shirt.

And in this moment, Sakura knows exactly what she is to Uchiha Sasuke.

Backing away, one footfall at a time bringing her toward the staircase. Mutterings lost in their bursting gasps. Fingers outstretched, snatching at him like she’s falling, and she is, and they are, over and over and over and they come together at the lips and break apart—

_Come—!_

_I don’t—_

_Sasuke-kun—_

_deserve—_

_I love—_

_You._

The arcs of his life are defined by the infinite ways in which his close ones love him, how they bring him back to his roots.

Always a man led by his weaknesses, he follows.


End file.
